Sermon: Pour It Out

Today our call to worship contains the words of Joel, a minor prophet.

I don’t know about you, but being known as a minor anything implies lack of success. For surely if you were good at your calling, you would be major.

So while our language and custom would dismiss Joel as unimportant based on this classification as minor, his message for us is anything but!

Look again at what he is telling the people of Israel.

Be glad, O people of Zion, rejoice in the LORD your God, for he has given you the autumn rains in righteousness.

He sends you abundant showers, both autumn and spring rains, as before. You will have plenty to eat, until you are full, and you will praise the name of the LORD your God, who has worked wonders for you.

And then you will know that He is in Israel, that He is the LORD your God, and that there is no other.

And afterward, He will pour out his Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.

Joel is prophesying plenty for those who have been in want for so long. In the verses leading up to this reading, we are reminded of the hardships of the people of Israel, when their spirits were all but broken and their hope all but lost.

Yet here’s Joel, the minor guy, giving them his vision of their future, filled with praise and confidence.

The Lord, your God, he says, has worked wonders for you. He will pour out his Spirit on all people, giving them open hearts and minds, the ability to once again dream. He is promising them abundant life physically, socially, and spiritually.

Isn’t that what we all are longing for? But Joel isn’t promising sunshine and roses everyday. He’s revealing the hope children of God can have. And he’s talking about the trust we can have that the God who sends us through, brings us through and then deeply sustains us beyond what we've been through.

For me, these last few months have been challenging on all of those fronts – physically, socially, and spiritually. Physically, I had been doctoring for several months and the culmination was a hysterectomy on August 4th.

Needing to go through the doctors’ visits, tests, more tests, more doctors, and then surgery was foreign to me. At the tender age of 44, I had my first surgery. As the nurse was prepping me, she asked where I had the best luck with IVs. I had never had one, so I couldn’t give her any advice!

As I recovered, I saw God’s grace and felt his Spirit with me continually. My husband was also wonderfully attentive and supportive – I couldn’t have done it without him. I know and understand what Joel’s message reveals – a trial strengthens us and we have the joyful obligation to praise God for all he has given us.

Socially, my challenge came when my family was forever changed. On August 20th, my dad died. Coming so close on the heels of my surgery, I was feeling beat down, discouraged, and emotionally shredded. Yet I was able to spend most of the last few days of dad’s life with him and mom as we sat with him at the nursing home.

I have to tell you, Alzheimers is a horrible dignity-robbing disease. While dad’s life ended on August 20th at 7 am, his quality of life had ended several months previously when he no longer knew any of his family and needed to move to the nursing home for his safety, so he couldn’t run away – back to the farm where he grew up, in his mind his parents were waiting for him to get there to work, and meet his obligations.

Spiritually, I was rocked to the core when my best friend was diagnosed with breast cancer earlier this month and had a double mastectomy a few days ago. How could this lovely, talented, beautiful Christian woman be struck by this disease?

We were roommates in college – meeting 25 years ago at Morningside where we had the same major, the same close knit group of friends, and common bond in our faith. By God’s divine will, I moved to Early where I continue to work at the first job I got after graduating from Morningside. When my friend graduated a year later, she got a job in Storm Lake and has lived in Early, too, for more than 20 years.

As she said, God knew we’d need each other and put us in each other’s lives so long ago so we could be each other’s support when the challenges came. We are closer now than ever and I’m walking with her on each step of this journey.

Over these same months, a co-workers grandfather died, a friend discovered his babysitter was inappropriate with his children, and a member of my church family lost her adult son to pancreatic cancer just 6 weeks after his diagnosis.

I began saying this was the worst fall ever. All of the trials I faced were overwhelming my usual spirit of optimism. Then as I began preparing to share with you today, I read and re-read the scriptures, finding in them exactly what I needed to reshape my thinking. God, in his infinite wisdom, revealed to me great truths.

First, I am now almost fully recovered, the physical issues I was struggling with are gone, and I am restored. I praise God for my healing and the caring compassionate doctors who helped me.

Second, my family is changed, but, my dad is now healed and whole. I could not have asked for him to remain here on earth, trapped in a body wearing out from 88 years of hard work, with a disease wrenching him away from the people, places, and things he loved.

I am using the lectionary today, the readings from the Old and New Testaments as well as the Gospel prescribed in a three year rotation. How perfectly like God to take something planned out so far in advance to touch my soul – and challenge me to share the message with you. Today’s reading from 2 Timothy 4 contains some of the scripture read at my dad’s memorial service. A coincidence? Not at all. It’s the working of my Heavenly Father.

These are the verses read at Dad’s service:
6For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure. 7I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 8Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.
But the lectionary continues – and here’s where I find God’s truth for me:
16At my first defense, no one came to my support, but everyone deserted me. May it not be held against them. 17But the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. And I was delivered from the lion's mouth. 18The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom. To him be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
But now, I can see ever more clearly the blessing of God’s grace and Christ’s mercy. Because I know my dad knew Jesus as his savior, I don’t have to wonder about his well-being now. I know with certainty he is in his heavenly home where Alzheimers no longer binds him – his memory and body are restored. And he has been reunited with his parents who he was so eager to rejoin while he was here with us those last few weeks.

I have been rescued from grief over my dad’s death and reminded of the confidence I can have in my God who will rescue me from every evil attack! And he rescued my friend as well…

Because lastly, my friend is now cancer free. In the biggest “A-ha!” moment of them all, I quit looking at this breast cancer diagnosis as devastating and now cherish it as life-saving. The cancer was caught early, the surgery removed the mutant cells, and she is now on the path to recovery – and a long life. This diagnosis – because it was early and the treatment so far completely successful – saved her life! Praise Jesus!

All of our hope is possible through Jesus, our savior and redeemer who gave his all for each of us.

In our gospel lesson today, Jesus teaches us about the dangers of arrogance, pride, and – most importantly – the need to be humble.

Those Pharisees were a peculiar lot. They were religious workers – set apart and dedicated to serving God. Yet they were slow to understand the lessons Christ was teaching during his three years of ministry. Their devotion was to ritual, not relationship.

The Pharisee speaks to God in prayer as if reading from a checklist then moves on. The tax official offers none of the expected, prescribed prayers, but instead pours out his heart and asks for mercy. And it is he, not the Pharisee, who went away justified, Jesus says.

What happens when we pour ourselves out in simple, honest prayer to God?

One of the most successful and Godly ministries at our church involves prayer shawls. Several members of our congregation – and even friends of our congregation – create beautiful shawls to be given to those who are ill, hurting, or grieving. We also dedicate baby shawls for newborns in our church family and extended church family.

The knitters and crocheters pour out their prayers over the shawls as they are created – not knowing who will receive it in most circumstances. But God knows and hears those prayers. Then the shawl is brought to Sunday morning worship and we make a circle around our sanctuary, holding hands, as a prayer of dedication is offered over the shawl and its recipient. These prayers are very often offered with great raw emotion.

We reach out to our Great Physician, asking for his divine will to be done, for his healing power to be poured out over the recipient, and for the creator of the shawl as well. These prayers are unlike any other we offer during worship because we are holding hands, petitioning for healing, and feeling more than any other time.

What Jesus is teaching us in the parable is to cultivate a heart open to God rather than a self-defensive checklist.

Sometimes our Sunday morning worship can become as dry as a checklist. We do one thing, get it done, move on to the next.

I want you to know, the checklist does matter. It makes sure we do the things we need to do, and that we accomplish our ministry as we are called to do. There's nothing wrong with a checklist or a routine. These things actually help.

But it is up to us to make sure the checklist or the routine is not the end in itself -- as long as the checklist serves as a prompt to our genuine action and response to the Spirit of God as we pray and worship.

Our prayers connect us with our Triune God and give us unimaginable access to the most holy. Let’s pour out our prayers, let’s worship with enthusiasm and joy, let’s call out to God, praising him for all he is.

God wants nothing more than for us to pour it out for him. We can have no secrets from him. When we verbalize our joys and fears, share our anxieties, and praise him, he rewards our faith with blessings to numerous to count.

Today, more than ever, I am aware of this unconditional love and the unmerited grace and mercy we are given because we believe.

When days are the darkest, His light shines the brightest. We are made perfect in weakness and proven by fire to be sold out servants of our Lord Jesus Christ whose love was so great, he was obedient until death on the cross for our sake. He poured it all out for you and for me.

Now, we can be examples for those who don’t know Jesus or have a relationship with him. By our words and actions we can show them about God’s love for all his children.

My encouragement to you for this week is to pour it out – be authentic and real in your prayers. And win one more soul for Jesus.

© Ann Trimble-Ray, 2010